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mayonnace t1_iv1qci8 wrote

You say blood transfusion. This doesn't necessarily mean a cancer cell that is being past.

There is a programmable virus that has the ability to start cancer on target tissue (that is you can program it to target a specific type of tissue, like lung for example). I don't remember the name, but I think it was first discovered on chicks. Now, I'm thinking that if one person somehow had that or similar type of virus capable of starting cancer, and they had a blood transfusion...

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Med_vs_Pretty_Huge t1_iv2ck7g wrote

Newcastle Disease Virus?

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mayonnace t1_iv33znn wrote

This shouldn't be the one, cuz wikipedia says that this one doesn't cause cancer but on the contrary, it prefers infecting and killing cancer cells. So, it's the vice versa situation. It's also interesting though. I mean, does it really work? And if so, then why don't they use it more often instead of chemotherapy? Guess even they don't know if it works or not. Hope they make it useful somehow.

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Med_vs_Pretty_Huge t1_iv3piy4 wrote

You said a programmable virus that you can program to target a specific tissue that was discovered in chicks. NDV is a virus in chickens that can be programmed to do that.

Yes, NDV (and other viral vector-based) cancer therapies are in development. They are not ready for primetime because it's a delicate balance between a viral vector that won't be immediately cleared by the immune system but also won't cause a severe infection and then you need a mechanism of action against the tumor that the virus can encode that isn't toxic to the person while also being effective at killing cancer cells. Also, unlike drugs, these viruses can potentially mutate which is another safety concern.

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mayonnace t1_iv5v15z wrote

I see. Thank you for the explanation.

I remember people talking about personalized drugs for cancer in past, which wouldn't have the problems of infection or immune response, but I'm guessing that would be extremely expensive.

Perhaps the researchers can find a way to target all sorts of cancer cells, and somehow develop a vaccine, so the immune system itself can cleanse any possible cancer. They can't even find a general vaccine for flu though. So, I don't have much hope. May be if they could target cells with something other than their outer surface... But they must have already been thinking about it. Hard stuff.

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Med_vs_Pretty_Huge t1_iv7f9j1 wrote

Your intuition and comparison to flu is correct. The genome of flu is miniscule and yet it mutates enough every year to render prior vaccines and infections less effective. "Cancer" is hundreds or thousands of different diseases with different mutations etc. It will be a marvel when market approval comes for a vaccine that eliminates a single type of cancer (e.g. a melanoma "vaccine"). A universal cancer vaccine will likely never happen. It's like having a single vaccine for every virus and bacteria on the planet.

Internal antigens are certainly investigated but yes, they are harder because they will only be exposed to the immune system in small pieces on MHC class 1 molecules and thus it can be even harder to differentiate tumor from normal. The checkpoint inhibitors enhance the immune system's ability to do this to an extent but they are non-specific boosters of immune function and can result in life-threatening autoimmune disease.

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Sprussel_Brouts t1_iv30osy wrote

Is it possible to target cancer cells? Give cancer cancer?

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mayonnace t1_iv36bgf wrote

I think cancer cells are making themselves more cancer already, I mean, mutating more, getting broken more, getting out of control more, spreading more... What you need to do is to either fix them, or kill them. Killing sounds easier.

But thinking about it now, perhaps if you could specifically find and broke them to the point which they can't function at all anymore, that might work too. But still, if you could find them, why not just kill them?

The Newcastle virus stuff which /u/Med_vs_Pretty_Huge has mentioned above sounds like something you may be interested in. In wikipedia it says that it prefers infecting and killing cancer cells more than they do ordinary cells, somehow.

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charlesfire t1_iv3y35w wrote

One of the theory to explain why large animals like whales have less cancers than smaller ones is that cancerous tumors can themselves get cancer and die off. Evolution is also a possible explanation. Kurzgesagt made a video about that.

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